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The central image of this political cartoon is the sinking boat, which resembles two things, the world and the inequality, or rather the sheer contrast of economic growth, wealth and labour of the MEDC’s, the Western world, and the LEDC’s and the Developing countries (i.e. Mexico, Uganda, Haiti, the list goes on). The boxes in the cartoon depict the ideologies and factors that the MEDC/west have, such as denial which represents the failure of the MEDC’s to acknowledge and address the inequality between the MEDC’s and the LEDC’s. The boxes profits and consumerism highlighting capitalism and how unfair it is to other LEDC’s.

Designing our project was pretty hard in the beginning but as we got used to each other, we were on our way and were able to set ourselves jobs and knew what to do. We collaborated and communicated a lot, and was able to assign each other jbs and also split ourselves into twos so we could be more efficient. Though we should’ve gotten used to each other a little quicker. I think I used the ATL skill communication, because me, and my group were able to finish the poster, the Google Slides and the Form.In the end, we were able to communicate a lot and finish our poster in a 30 minute span. One thing we learned was to split our group into halves so we would be quicker and more efficient. Next time I’ll try to finish my work a little earlier so I would be able to revise and check for any grammatical errors.I contributed to the poster, which i the end was an easy way of showing people the results we got from or Google Form.

As warfare in the Democratic Republic of Congo pursue, the Militia in Eastern Congo run mines to dig up conflict minerals. These conflict minerals, tin, tantalum, gold and tungsten have a paramount role in modern day technology. Tantalum, possibly the most important out of the 4 conflict minerals, is used to store electricity in your phone. Lacking tantalum, your phone simply wouldn’t exist. Gold, is used to coat the wiring and the most expensive element, inside your mobile phone or your computer. Tin on the other hand is used as solder for the circuit board and Tungsten makes your mobile phone capable of vibrating. Other earth elements are vital in the making of technology such as yttrium, lanthanum, praseodymium, neodymium, europium, gadolinium, terbium and dysprosium which are used in the colour screen, circuitry, speakers and the vibration unit.

The bit of technology I have chosen to research was the iPhone, manufactured by Apple. The most recent iPhone costs $649 and is capable of playing music and videos, navigating, accessing the internet and serving as a phone making it a digital swiss army knife. The main reason I chose this bit of technology was because of how popular and frequently bought the iPhone is opposed to other mobile phones manufactured by other companies. By purchasing the a phone you have a certain role in funding these armed groups. Of course, by purchasing the iPhone won’t make you responsible for these monstrous acts that the militia will cause as your purchase of the iPhone will have a very small chance of making a big deal. Though it is very frightening that even a purchase of a bit of tech could possibly cause such horrid atrocities.

As the demand for iPhones/electronic devices have increased in the past decade, electronic waste has also increased by millions in tons and almost less than 1% of the rare earth minerals are recycled since there are no really good environmentally friendly methods available to mine and to recycle rare earth minerals, as Professor Christian Ekberg of Chalmers University of Technology stated. To my mind, the best and easiest way of putting an end to all of the chaos that the armed groups in Congo will carry out is to try to buy electronic products from more conflict mineral free manufacturers such as HP, Intel, Dell, Apple and Microsoft. In addition to buying conflict mineral free electronic products, you could try to retain your mobile phone and not to buy a new mobile phone every time a recent upgrade or version comes out of it. Even though it might be tempting to buy the new and most recent iPhone that came out, by retaining that fully functional iPhone, you might be able to save yourself some lives.

Overall, I liked both mountain biking and the day hike because we were able to embrace nature and how we were able to manage ourselves and our group in the day hike. I think that I did well helping different people in the different activities we had done. The biggest obstacle or challenge I had to overcome was our roommates, as they had different sleeping schedules than myself. I learned that I should be optimistic and helpful even if I haven’t really talked to or even met the person. I think I grew more open-minded since I had to be aware of my fellow roommates. I think that school expeditions are crucial because it gives us students a chance to interact and make new friends. I suppose that I should continue being optimistic around other people, and to improve the ability to strike up a conversation with people that I’ve never really met.

I, chose Dan which is one of my peers in my class. I drew Dan when we were practicing which was really easy because he had a very broad personality, it was very easy to know that he likes Star Wars and would often distract, or annoy people. He always had a mischievous smile and it was very easy to recognize that he did some mischievous stuff. As he just tried to force quit Google Chrome. I chose to express his facial expression, his interests and his actions in real life. His facial expression being a mischievous smile, his interest being Star Wars. and his action in real life being wasting time.

Then, I was able to find a famous graffiti artist called Banksy. Which had a lot of imagination in his graffiti. He mainly uses dark colors which is the reason behind why I used dark gray for my background. I replaced the Olympic rings with clocks to imply him stealing time, or simply wasting time. I drew him with a Boba Fett shirt to imply him really loving Star Wars. I also added a Red and a Blue lightsaber to imply him liking both sides in star wars. I added him with a mischievous smile to imply him doing something bad. I also added some lighter shades of color around him to imply that he usually does good deeds. I chose Banksy, the graffiti artist because he had a lot of imagination in his drawings. When I saw the chance to use my imagination to symbolize Dan’s personality and interests.

While doing Unit 2, I had realised that I have a particular strength in making interlocking patterns, though I have a weakness of managing my time, I might just be slow at drawing, but I’d like to think that it was just me not focusing very well. If I was to do this unit once more, I would like to manage my time more wisely and to come to open studio more often. I would also would have liked to add more cultural influence to my motif and also to make the motif a little more easier to draw.

I tried using visualising an alternative possibility. If I was drawing my motif, I would often be like,
“It looks ‘pretty’ good but it could be better.” and would erase then find a better motif, Which worked out pretty well due to my motif getting better and better each time I erased and re-drawn my motif. Sometimes it would set me back but it worked quite well for me.

My cultural and personal influence did not work that great, my cultural influence was the Celtic design, where different things would overlap each other. My personal influence was the movie Inception (2010). I tried to use the scene from inception where they bended the road into going into a infinite loop, and tried to use a interlocking road pattern to have the whole, ‘never ending road pattern’ thing. I tried to make the roads overlap each other but that did not work out very great. I chose the celtic design because ou were able to make these crazy shapes and overlap them over each other. I chose Inception not only because of how good it is, but chose it because of how they use their imagination the movie. So, I thought to myself, ‘How cool would it be if I was able to make a motif based on a very crazy overlapping cultural design and a crazy movie full of imagination?

I mainly focused on the whole, interlocking concept. I used very ‘square’ shapes and no circles which may have screwed me up, I realize that I should have added a variety of shapes. I used the ruler to make sure it interlocked and sure enough, it did. It was mainly my own fault that I was not able to finish these motifs, but If I had, I would have chosen such colors as green, dark purple, black and white. Somewhat in a cross pattern. I would have chose these colors due to them being cool colors. In the next unit, I would like to focus more, come to open studio and to finish my final project.

The glowing swords such as Sting, in the Lord of the Rings, being a sign of light, determination and hope.

If a orc is near, the sword would glow and would give the person hope and give them determination. The sword would glow blue-ish, white-ish, both being a sign of light and faith. Even if you are in a dark room, it would glow giving you light and determination to live it may be a small small sword but trusty.

Practicing Tsuchi-Ningyo and performing this piece was very hard due to the piece being very long and complicated. Before the performance, I had practiced and focused on the areas that I wasn’t very good at and often played the whole piece. I tried my best to memorize Tsuchi-Ningyo and went pretty well. I think that the way I practiced worked well for me and worked well for the performance. Though I could’ve practiced with a metronome because I tend to speed up on some areas. Next time I will practice more and submit more practice logs. I will try to use a metronome next time and to try my best to not speed up. I think our performance as a group went terrific but we could’ve played more smooth and aesthetic. If I was to go back and do the concert I would’ve waited for the cue because I started played before the cue even started. Though as a whole group, we did pretty good memorizing the whole piece and to stay with the pace. For me, rather than practicing the WHOLE piece over and over again, I would practice the areas that I wasn’t good at which worked really good. Next time I will use a metronome and try not to gradually speed up.